LESSON 20.] THE EEMAINING TISSUES. 57 



known at a very early period of the world's history ; thus we find 

 that the ancient Egyptians were as well acquainted with the value 

 and importance of flax, as employed in the construction of linen, as 

 we are. 



340. They used it expressly for this purpose, to the exclusion of 

 every other vegetable tissue ; the mummy-cloth, in which the bodies 

 of the dead were enrolled, and of which such amazing quantities were 

 used, no less for the mummified remains of cats, the Ibis, bullocks' 

 heads, &o., than for the needs of poor humanity, was composed en- 

 tirely of flax. If the deceased person chanced to be a King, or a 

 Priestess (probably, also, any very distinguished person), a layer of 

 beautifully "fine linen " was placed next to the body. 



341. Belzoni, the celebrated Egyptian traveller, brought to Eng- 

 land, and placed in the British Museum, the Sarcophagus, containing 

 the body of a King, exhumed from the tomb of the ancient Kings of 

 Thebes. The Sarcophagus was in the last stage of decay, but the 

 vegetable papyrus, which recorded the rank of the deceased, and the 

 date of his demise, together with the several layers of mummy cloth, 

 were as perfect as though made yesterday ! And yet this body had 

 lain in the tomb upwards of five thousand years ! 



342. But a still older mummy may be seen in the Muesum of the 

 Vatican at Rome ; the individual is admitted to have lived contem- 

 poraneously with the Patriarch Abraham yet the mummy cloth is 

 by no means decayed ! 



343. These facts are well known to persons possessing Micro- 

 scopes, and curious in such matters, who have had no difficulty in pro- 

 curing specimens for examination.* We have seen that the layer 

 placed next to the body was of fine texture, and free from bitumen ; 

 the layer which succeeded this was somewhat coarser, and imbued 

 with bitumen (mineral pitch) slightly. Of the remaining layers, 

 each one was coarser than that which preceded it, till the outer layer 

 was remarkably coarse, strong, and close in texture. The bitumen 

 increased with the coarseness of the cloth, so that the outer layers 

 were perfectly saturated with it. 



344. If the Egyptians constructed their mummy cloth of flax, 

 the ancient Peruvians, who also embalmed their dead, invariably em- 

 ployed cotton for this purpose, and the only mode of discriminating 

 between Peruvian and Egyptian mummy cloth, is by submitting them 

 to the Microscope. 



* The author has many such examples in his possession, ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 

 years old. 



